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shopkeepers to charge my purchases to the Metzenburgs’ account.
    I wrote to Mr. Knox describing the Tickell’s thrush, redheaded buntings, and icterine warbler I saw in the Tiergarten. I also told him about the ruined shops and frightening caricatures on the walls of the buildings. When I read the letter for spelling errors, I was surprised by its worried tone. I didn’t want Mr. Knox to think that I was afraid, or in danger, and I copied the letter onto a new sheet of paper, leaving out the description of the shops.

    As we wrapped the last of the Vincennes, Kreck said, “I’m surprised that Herr Metzenburg hasn’t received another visit from Herr Hofer. He came once, but did not remain more than a few minutes.” He made a face, but I couldn’t tell if he was disappointed or relieved. “It’s well known that our Führer doesn’t admire the Romanesque, in which Herr Metzenburg has a particular interest, although Reichsmarschall Göring has a passion for it. He has coveted Herr Felix’s collection since the old days. It is thanks in part to the Reichsmarschall that prices are so high.” He also said, lowering his voice, that one of the Reichsmarschall’s friends in the Foreign Office had that week offered Herr Metzenburg a posting in Algiers. Although Herr Felix refused to leave Germany, he did not wish to prevent Frau Metzenburg from going, if that was what she desired. Kreck said that Herr Felix wanted to be with his treasures, but Frau Metzenburg wanted to be with Herr Felix. Sometimes, Kreck said, Herr Felix acted as if his objects had lives of their own. I was curious to know more, but two porters came into the room to remove a crate, and Kreck fell silent.
    We moved to Löwendorf at the end of October, traveling in two cars, one of them driven by Herr Felix. A few boys were standing at the gates when we arrived, shoulders hunched with the chill, and a white-haired man from the village, Herr Pflüger, waited hat in hand in the gravel court in front of the house. He insisted on helping with the numerous suitcases, and I could see that Kreck didn’t like it.
    The house, known as the Yellow Palace, was a large, square, symmetrical box of yellow stone in the classical style, two stories high, with marble urns at the corners of the flat roof. On the ground floor, five arched windows, their shutters painted sea green, looked onto a terrace with marble statues. There was a park with a narrow river running through it, and at the bottom of the park, a small temple with a striped awning on its roof. A large house, the Pavilion, built for Frau Metzenburg’s parents when they married, was in the park and, in the distance, a forest called the Night Wood.
    Kreck, who’d been sent to Löwendorf ahead of us to see to the unloading of twenty-three wagons of treasure, took me through the rooms. The house had been built by a student of Karl Friedrich Schinkel for Frau Metzenburg’s great-grandmother, the Baroness Schumacher. There was gold-and-black lacquer furniture in the dining room and music room, and a chandelier with fifty-six candles in the hall. The walls of the dining room were painted with Chinese figures, outlined in silver. A low divan of white silk ran along two sides of the drawing room, whose walls were covered with rectangles of pale green silk framed in gold. In the paneled library, there were lime-wood bookcases, two desks, leather chairs, and a long table for reading maps and manuscripts. In each of the rooms, Kreck had filled pale green vases with leafless stalks of allium, the only flower that Herr Felix allowed in the house in winter.
    My bedroom was on the second floor, overlooking the avenue of Dutch elms. The curtains and bed coverings were in pale blue linen. There was a black marble fireplace and a red-and-orange patterned carpet. Against one wall was a chest ofdrawers. A gilt mirror above the chimneypiece reflected the tops of the elms. I could see the river, winding through the park, and the